Strip City

Eugene P. Moehring analyzes the development of Reno and Las Vegas since 1945 with special emphasis on the years after 1970. Major factors that shaped the development of both cities were the growth of corporate gaming and megaresorts and increased personal leisure and affluence. Moehring provides an engaging, informative, and readable history of the divergent paths that Reno and Las Vegas took over the past forty years. Reno, the nation’s gambling mecca in the 1950s, led the way, developing the successful tourist economy that Las Vegas later embraced. Through the 1970s the two cities resembled each other greatly, but Las Vegas grew to achieve global significance, while Reno slowly declined, searching for new industries to power its future. Moehring shows that the development of the Las Vegas Strip was crucial to southern Nevada’s success. The casinos, hotels, and entertainments of the Strip, and the workers they supported, formed a new urban center ringed by offices, residences, shopping, and a major university. In effect, it became a third metropolis, governed by county commissioners, larger than Reno and Las Vegas combined. Moehring brings the story of the three cities to the present day, examining lessons learned from the Great Recession and the efforts under way in all three metropolises to diversify their economies. Moehring makes an important contribution with the only current study of Nevada’s cities, focusing on urban development issues rather than social history or the gaming industry. As the service economy continues to grow, not only in Nevada but throughout the United States, Moehring’s work has many implications for urban studies and particularly the study of urban development in other metropolitan areas.

Lily Burana had given up on stripping years before she accepted a marriage proposal-but decided to strip her way from Florida to Alaska before settling down. Lily, now a successful journalist, looks back at stripping with a writer's perspective. Her humorous yet hard-edged memoir deftly describes funky clubs and offbeat characters, the exhilaration that overtakes a dancer on stage-and the darker realities that assail her heart when she's out of the spotlight. Strip City is both a hugely entertaining insider's account of a hidden world and a moving voyage of self-discovery. Lily Burana has written for The New York Times Book Review, GQ, New York magazine, The Village Voice, Spin, and Salon. She lives in New York State. This is her rst book.

In the 19th century, pure mathematics research reached a climax in Germany, and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) was an epochal example. August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868) was his doctoral student whose work was profoundly influenced by him. In the 18th century, it had been mostly the French school of applied mathematics that enabled the rapid developments of science and technology in Europe. How could this shift happen? It can be argued that the major reasons were the devastating consequences of the Napoleonic Wars in Central Europe, leading to the total defeat of Prussia in 1806. Immediately following, far-reaching reforms of the entire state system were carried out in Prussia and other German states, also affecting the educational system. It now guaranteed freedom of university teaching and research. This attracted many creative people with new ideas enabling the “golden age” of pure mathematics and fundamental theory in physical sciences. Möbius’ legacy reaches far into today’s sciences, arts, and architecture. The famous one-sided Möbius strip is a paradigmatic example of the ongoing fascination with mathematical topology. This is the first book to present numerous detailed case studies on Möbius topology in science and the humanities. It is written for those who believe in the power of ideas in our culture, experts and laymen alike.